'I found the best hiking backpack for the Lake District and now I use it for my Tesco shop'

Jun 17, 2023

This bag was a life-saver in the mountains and even better in my every day life

Cardio isn't my thing. I'd rather lift a very big weight for 30 second intervals than ever even look in the direction of the treadmills. In caveman times, my ancestors were probably the ones who pushed the rock over the cave entrance. So when I decided to hike up the Lake District, the first thing I needed was a good hiking backpack.

For a few years I traipsed around London with my trusty Nike rucksack, but it posed two problems for me: firstly, wear, tear, and an inclination to throw my belongings around like Bam Bam led to several holes in vital areas; secondly, if I wanted to carry all the weight on my shoulders, I'd be Ryan Gosling in the Barbie movie.

After trawling the web for something both affordable and functional, I found one that could work: the SKYSPER small hiking backpack. Coming in at £32.97 on Amazon, it is in that sweet spot of not so expensive I need to beg my landlord not to make me homeless and not so suspiciously cheap it will fall apart in the rain.

READ MORE: 'I compared Huel and MyProtein to find the best protein shake and the answer was the most obvious one'

The reviews on the site, too, were promising: it's got 4.6 out of 1,037 ratings, with 74% of them five star. It's 20 litres, made from polyester and nylon, while also being water, tear and wear-resistant. The straps are also reinforced with lap-knots to increase durability. They also say it is lightweight, coming in at 1.1 pounds.

This is perfect for me, as my friend and I decided to head up to the Lake District in June, when England remembered it could be sunny in the summer (we also managed to bag £45 trains up there from London on Trainline). On this cloudless, baking hot day, we took on Helvellyn, one of the biggest mountains in England.

I decided to pack 2 litres of water with me in various bottles, having learnt a very harsh lesson the day before. Alongside this, I packed a bag of Babybels (protein!), Grenade bars and about a dozen fruit and nut bars from Tesco.

Putting the bag on my back for the first time, the weight pressed onto my shoulders. Luckily, the waist strap came to the rescue, and with a quick click managed to distribute it very evenly. There's also another strap over the shoulders for extra support. My main gripe with this is the waist strap needed adjusting while hiking a few times. It's not the end of the world but can get annoying if you are on the thicker side like me.

National Trust Members help protect many of our nation's favourite places for future generations. Individuals over 26 pay £7 a month, couples just £11.60 a month and families only £12.20 - for two adults and two children or grandchildren.

£12.20 a month

Even though hiking up the mountain produced perhaps the most amount of sweat I've ever encountered in my life, none of it penetrated the walls of bag. This is about as close as I could test the water resistance of the bag as the glorious mountains of our National Park lit up in summer rays.

However, it's truly surprising feature is... it appears to be a bottomless bag. Despite all the food and water packed in, it remained small and with loads of space. Back in London, this fact proved even more true. Normally I bring a plastic Tesco bag for life with me alongside the trusty Nike backpack because my poor impulse control means my cat and I have enough food to live for five thousand years.

Taking this backpack for the first time to Tesco, I encountered my normal problem of having the main hole filled to the brim. But I kept finding more pockets. Kiwis fell into a side pocket, a tin of beans in the main hole, Kit Kats sliding through the others. I am yet to run out of room in the thing. Sure, it's not quite the "coolest" looking bag in the world. But if you're looking for something that fits in a lot of stuff for your shopping and is a life-saver while you're hiking, I'm pretty sure I've found the backpack for you.

You can buy the backpack on Amazon for £32.97.

Sign up to MyLondon's Going Out Out for the very best of what's going on in the city here.